The Pasadena Psycopath Paradigm
by Mis Chi Evous
Summary: Penny goes missing - the latest in a series of missing blonde actresses from Pasadena. Sheldon calls an old friend for help when the police won't listen to his concerns. More in the style of CM than BBT. This story ignores the existence of Amy Farrah Fowler. Because I can.
1. Chapter 1

_12:01 a.m. PST, Sunday_

_Pasadena, California_

The box was opening.

She'd lost track of the time she'd been in the box. Lost track of the times he'd bathed her, only to dress her and style her hair… and rape her. Again and again. There wasn't much left of her inside her head, only a little voice that kept her alive. Kept her breathing in and out.

When she saw his face, the smile… the gun… some part of her was relieved.

_Oh thank God, _she thought. _It's finally over_.

And then… pain.

And nothing.

* * *

_10:20 p.m. PST, Wednesday (Halo Night)_

_Pasadena, California_

"I lost sight of her! Damnit! I lost sight of her. Oh shit, this is not going to be good," Howard said over the headset (he was playing in his bedroom instead of the apartment this time), his voice carefully pitched low enough not to disturb his mother or Bernadette.

"I'm trying to get a visual on her," Leonard said. "Nobody panic until there's something –"

"It's been quiet too long," Raj fretted. "Too long!" He took a sip of the beer he was nursing in order to make talking to Penny

_Boom._ The explosion seemed to come from nowhere, catching them all off guard. Blue uniforms went flying in every direction.

"Hold it together! Hold it together!" Leonard shouted.

"I could do a better job of _that_ if someone wasn't yelling in my ear," Howard muttered, trying desperately to get control of his character.

"Muwahaha!" Sheldon's voice came over the headset. "Eat that, weaklings!"

"Focus, Sheldon!" Penny snapped at him. "No use gloating until the fat lady sings."

Sheldon's mouth quirked up in amusement, but he nodded.

"Why do we let them play on the same team again?" Leonard asked, out of the side of his mouth.

Raj gestured wordlessly to the exchange happening just down the couch from the.

"Hit the –"

"I _see_ it, Sheldon. You focus on doing your part!"

"Penny! Behind you!"

"I'll take care of this guy, you get the –"

"Got it."

Leonard sighed, and Raj lifted an eyebrow, as if to say: "That's why."

* * *

"I don't want to brag," Penny said, stretching tensing muscles out as she got off the couch, "but we _slaughtered_ you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Raj said under his breath, his necessary half-a-beer making him more sullen than usual. "Rub it in."

"Penny's not gloating. She's merely making an assertion of truth," Sheldon said, rising to his feet. "In Texas, we'd say you got took out back."

Penny grinned. "We kicked your _ass_."

"I'm going to bed," Raj announced, laying prone on the couch.

"Get your feet out of my spot!" Sheldon practically screeched, his eyebrows migrating up his forehead nearly to his hairline.

Obliging due to a lack of energy, Raj dropped his feet to the floor and promptly fell asleep.

"I'm going to scoot," Penny said, deftly stepping around the debris from the evening's festivities. "I've got an audition in the morning and then a shift in the afternoon."

"An audition?" Leonard asked, following her as she started out the door. "What for?"

"I don't know that much about it. It's just a bit part. My agent has an in, though, so hopefully something comes out of it." Penny didn't look excited, the way she often had when Leonard and Sheldon had first met her and she had an opportunity to advance her acting career.

"Good luck," Leonard said, raising his hand.

"Thanks, guys! I had fun. See you later!" She said over her shoulder as she walked out the door.

Sheldon didn't even say good-bye. That was something he would think about quite often in the days to come.

* * *

_7:02 a.m. EST, Saturday_

_Quantico, Virginia_

Spencer Reid had more than a nodding familiarity with his phone ringing at odd hours of the day and night. He had no problem, now, coaxing his mind from sleep to awareness in the space of moments. That didn't mean, however, that he wasn't still sometimes surprised.

He'd just fallen asleep, really. He'd been pushing himself hard to finish his psychology thesis the night before, knowing that he had the weekend off and would be able to make up for his lack of sleep during the daytime hours. Left to his own devices, Spencer preferred to do the bulk of his thinking at night, when there wasn't as much stimulus for his brain to latch on to, when he could run on the fuel of coffee and be comforted by the lull of the television in the background, and the sound of his keys clacking in the night. There was something … reassuring, about this routine. Academia had remained in his life since his adolescence and he still appreciated its rigors and routines, and the structure it had afforded his life when he had been looking for _anything_ he could count on.

His cell phone rang. Incessantly, he knew, because he heard it and decided to ignore it, pursuing sleep with a dogged determination, but the ringing cut through that and his sense of responsibility won out.

"Dr. Spencer Reid," he said, not checking the display. Only the Bureau or one of his teammates would call him at this hour.

"Spencer, I'm not sure you remember me," said a deep voice with a trace of a Texas accent.

"Sheldon Cooper?"

"Oh good. I was afraid I'd have to indulge in a tiresome social ritual."

Spencer's lips quirked in amusement. It was good to know that some things never changed. "Eidetic memory."

"Yes, of course. Apologies. Recent events have left me… frazzled."

"Something I can help you with, Sheldon?"

"Yes. It has come to my attention that you're considered something of an expert in the field of criminal psychology."

Reid tried very hard not to laugh. "That's true."

"As you know, it is difficult for me to admit when I… may be out of my… that is…" Sheldon drew in a shaky breath. "Penny is missing."

Reid reached for his glasses and sat up. "What's going on, Sheldon?"

* * *

_9:30 a.m. EST, Saturday_

_Quantico, Virginia_

He'd been sitting in Garcia's office for the last half-hour, his fingers flying over keys. Although he couldn't claim to be as good with computers as the tech analyst, he was able to use a search engine.

"Reid?" Garcia popped her head in the door. "You know I love you, sugar, but breaking and entering is a felony. I'm going to need you to put your hands in the air and back away from the computer slowly."

"Over the past year and a half, girls have been disappearing from Pasadena, California at regular intervals. The girls go missing on a Sunday – two weeks later authorities find the body in a public place. State and city parks, outside of buildings…"

"No witnesses?"

"No witnesses. Our unsub is organized and intelligent."

"Here's the thing, Reid. I wasn't aware we'd been called to help with a case in Pasadena," Garcia said, "and I'm usually the first one to know these days."

"We haven't been, at least not officially. I put in a call earlier this morning. I'm waiting to hear back."

"Reid." Garcia's brow knitted in concern. "What's going on?"

"I got a call from old friend," Spencer said, pushing back from the computer and rubbing his eyes. "A friend of his has gone missing."

"From Pasadena?"

"Yes."

"Reid, honey…"

"She fits the victimology. I know it's our weekend off… I'm planning to fly out myself. I'll use vacation time if I have to…"

"What's going on?" Hotch asked from the door way. He'd foregone his usual straight-from GQ suit and had donned jeans and a sweater to fight against the Virginia cold. "Reid, what are you doing here? And what's this I'm hearing about a consult on the case in Pasadena?"

Reid sighed. "Hotch, it's our weekend off. What are you doing here?"

"Jack's at a sleepover. I have paperwork." Hotch shrugged.

"Hey, Baby Girl, you know I love your sexy ass, but what's up with calling me so early on a Saturday when you _know_ I was… Oh. Hey Reid, Hotch. What's going on?"

"Reid's thinking of flying out to California to consult on a case on his own time," Garcia said, putting her hands on her hips.

"Reid? What's going on?"

Reid fought the urge to pound his head into the desk.

"Well, hey hey hey, the gang's all here," JJ's voice carried over the chatting going on. Reid looked up and saw her and Prentiss in the door way.

"Okay, I love you all, but my office is way too small for this. Get out, my darlings. Out!" Garcia pushed them out the door.

Two hours later, they were on a plane.

* * *

_11:52 a.m. EST, Saturday_

_Somewhere over the continental United States_

"So, what's the deal with your friend Sheldon, Reid?" Prentiss asked, plopping herself in the seat next to him. "I've never heard you talk about him before."

"You wouldn't have," Reid said. "I don't usually… That is to say, we haven't talked in a while. He's a few years older than me… a theoretical physicist at Cal Tech."

"So you guys did your undergrad work together?"

"No. He was a professor… and a friend, obviously."

Prentiss raised her eyebrows. "He's a few years older than you and he was your _professor_?"

"Yes. He has an extremely high IQ and an eidetic memory."

"So what you do even talk about, man?" Morgan asked, a smile quirking his lips.

"Sheldon had some… uh. Unique challenges." Reid swallowed. "I want to be fair: part of the reason I was planning on coming out here by myself is that I'm not sure…"

"Spit it out," Morgan said.

"Sheldon's an obsessive-compulsive, socially awkward genius. He has a particular need to do things in threes – possibly stemming from his religious background. He prefers that nothing in his world changes or shifts, and assigns the people in his life roles and provides them with contracts, more so that he'll understand his obligations to them than the other way around."

"Is he delusional?"

"No. At least, not when I knew him. But I've not spoken to him for years. Actually spoken, that is. We exchange professional correspondence on a regular basis… the last time I heard from him before now, we discussed my pursuit of a psych degree, and some of my papers that have been published… and a recent professional setback he had encountered."

"Is it possible that he's our unsub, and he's reaching out for you to stop him?"

Reid shrugged. "He's a narcissist, but he's never expressed sexual interest in… anyone, as far as I know."

"Which doesn't fit the profile we can work up," Hotch said, his voice carrying over the plane and reining everyone in.

JJ studied the pictures in front of her. "There are no stab wounds, but there are bruises and signs the women were restrained for long periods of time."

"All of the women are excessively made up," Prentiss said, crossing her legs. "Blue eye-shadow, bright red lipstick…"

"All blondes, all in their mid-to-late twenties. And all malnourished. The coroner says the last girl, April Travers, only had a couple of more days to live, anyway."

"All actresses," said Garcia's voice over Morgan's phone. "Penelope Opheim has appeared in a few local and one national commercials, and April Travers just made her debut in a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in a local theater to some nice reviews."

"So… our unsub is targeting blonde actresses in California." Morgan shook his head. "With that kind of pool of victims…"

No more needed to be said.

* * *

_12:15 p.m. PST, Saturday_

_Somewhere in Pasadena, California_

Penny woke up _pissed_.

Well, a little scared. But mostly pissed. The last time someone had gotten the jump on her, she'd been in elementary school and that little bitch Tiffany Heines had dropped on her from the monkey bars. Back then, Penny had held her own, and Tiffany had paid dearly for her mistake. Penelope Opheim did not get jumped.

Except for when she was distracted… because this acting gig wasn't really working out, and it was difficult to pay the bills, and waitressing was starting to hurt her more than just physically. Her back hurt, her feet hurt, and her smile was starting to dull. She was happy for Bernadette, really, but her friend's happiness with Howard was only highlighting how alone she felt, and plugging the holes in her psyche with meaningless sex was starting to wear on her.

She'd been contemplating Nebraska, the way she sometimes did. She knew it was a romantic notion, but she'd found herself longing for an endless sky and a field of corn. She'd been longing for home.

The blow to the back of the head had surprised her, but it hadn't knocked her unconscious. She'd turned to fight, and that's when she had seen the knife. It had given her pause – it hadn't stopped her, but it had given her pause, and that was all the time the jackass had needed.

…And now she had a bitch of a headache and… she lifted her hands above her. Wall. To the side. Wall. Underneath of her, floor. To the other side… wall.

She had a bitch of a headache and some psycho had put her in a fucking box.

Just… perfect.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

_Dr. Reid,_

_ I have finished my initial examination of your most recent paper. You have not resigned me to your apparent abandonment of the true sciences, but I will admit that your findings were sound and your conclusion fascinating._

_ Your inquiries into my personal life are appreciated. I have been doing well._

_Fond regards,_

_S. Cooper, Ph.D., ScD._

* * *

_Dr. Cooper,_

_ Thank you for your (relatively) kind words. I'm glad you enjoyed the paper. I am looking forward to examining the work you're researching now. I hope that you will not let recent events affect your ambitions. _

_ Although you did not ask, I am doing well myself. I find the work I'm engaged in to be very fulfilling. _

_Your student,_

_S. Reid, Ph.D._

* * *

_Saturday, 7:30 a.m. PST_

_Pasadena, California_

Sheldon had hung up the phone with Reid feeling marginally relieved. He'd stayed up all night until it would be (barely) socially acceptable to call his friend and ask for help. The anxiety had been screaming in his head keeping him from true rest, anyway. Despite common knowledge to the contrary, he knew when he was well out of his depth, when… _feelings_ made thinking difficult. He'd seen the pattern, of course, yes… any child or reasonably competent adult who habitually watched _CSI_ could spot the pattern, see how Penny would fit it.

Anything beyond that was outside of his comfort zone, and all the arrogance in the world couldn't prevent him from admitting that… when it came to Penny he'd do things he would never do for anyone else: drive illegally, share his spot…

Ask for help.

Finally, he began to hear the sounds of someone stirring in Leonard's room. His roommate was waking up, and he could tell Leonard what he'd done. Leonard, who believed he was working himself into a tizzy over nothing. Sheldon couldn't deny that, in the past, his anxiety had led him to jump to conclusions, to skip the logical steps… to verify results. But over the past few days, he'd consciously fought what his subconscious was screaming at him. He had, of course, been following the news story carefully: he often monitored crime in Pasadena so he would know what areas to avoid, which areas were relatively safe.

He replayed that final moment in his head a thousand times. If he'd said good-bye, added a caveat to be careful… if he had acted like a concerned friend and offered to go with her, the same way she would offer to go the comic store with him…

Leonard's sigh announced his presence at the door.

"Are you still awake?"

"I missed my bedtime 7.2 hours ago, Leonard."

Leonard shook his head and went to the kitchen, forcing himself through the routine of making coffee. "So take a sleeping pill."

"Over 100 million sleeping pills were prescribed to Americans in the last year," Sheldon said absently, "none of them to me."

"I have a bottle in the medicine cabinet."

Sheldon shot Leonard a look. "Prescription drug abuse is a crime, Leonard."

"Arrest me. No cop would press charges knowing I'd have to deal with you on no sleep."

Sheldon shifted in his seat. "Leonard, I have something to tell you… about Penny."

"Did she call to check in?" Leonard asked, a glimmer of hope in his eye.

"No, she won't, Leonard, as I've said. That's not in the pattern."

"Sheldon, you can't know for sure that some psychopath…"

"Sociopath."

Leonard looked exasperated. "What?"

"Given the way the crimes are presented, the pattern and lack of evidence, the perpetrator is most likely a sociopath."

Leonard's eyebrows knitted together. "What have you been _doing_ all night?"

"Research. Just because _you_ refuse to do anything about Penny's abduction doesn't mean my hands are tied."

It took him a minute, because Leonard never really "fired at all cylinders", as George Cooper used to say, without at least a pot and a half of coffee in him, but eventually he got there and asked the question that Sheldon had both been dreading and anticipating.

"Sheldon, what the hell did you_ do_?"

* * *

_Saturday, 12:30 p.m. PST_

_Just outside of Pasadena Airspace_

"Don't look at me like that."

Emily was startled out of her near-trance by the sound of Spencer's voice. She'd been contemplating the evidence, yes, but she'd also been thinking about a young Spencer Reid - what he must have been like in college… what a friend from that era might think of him now. Reid couldn't read her mind, there was no way to tell she'd been thinking about him, other than her eyes had unfocused in his general direction. She decided to play it off.

"I wasn't looking at you in any particular way. I was just… thinking."

"My childhood wasn't that bad."

Emily's eyebrows raised. "I didn't think it was."

"Schizophrenic mother, abandoned by my father at a young age, an emancipated minor by 16 so I could make medical decisions and attend graduate and doctoral schools… it's not an unreasonable assumption. I certainly don't fault you for it."

"Reid, I…"

"But really, it wasn't that bad. There were long stretches of time where my mother was medicated and was practically lucid. She made sure my teachers challenged and inspired me; stepped in when they couldn't or wouldn't."

Emily raised her hands in protest. "I don't know where this is coming from. Reid, I swear, I would never make _assumptions_…"

"Everyone makes assumptions, Prentiss. It's easier, because we're profilers. I suppose I could be kinder and call them suppositions. Given A and B, C. But it wasn't awful. It might have been, from time to time, lonely…"

"Spence."

"But then I met Sheldon."

"Oh." Emily sat back.

"There were some whispers, I remember. Professors who worried that we would engage in some sort of intellectual super battle. IQs at 50 paces. But you know, his interests were always slightly to the left of mine. I hadn't quite figured out what my path would be, but Sheldon was a born physicist… a Feynman convert. Mostly, it was just nice to have someone who, even if he couldn't express it, understood."

"You said you hadn't talked in a while?" Emily leaned forward, ready to reengage.

Reid shrugged – a gesture that spoke a thousand words. "Life," he said simply.

Emily nodded. No one understood that quite as well as she did.

* * *

_Saturday, 1:05 p.m. PST_

_Bob Hope Airport, Burbank, California_

"Sheldon, you're telling me you have a friend in the _FBI_?"

"I have said so repeatedly for the last six hours. I honestly don't know why you're surprised by this, Leonard."

Leonard's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "You don't know why I'm surprised that you have a friend I don't know about."

"I find your assumption that you know everything about my life, past and present, to be both presumptuous and based on faulty logic."

Leonard whistled. "Someone's touchy."

"Penny is _missing_," Sheldon hissed.

"She's probably okay," Leonard said. "She's gone away without telling us before."

Sheldon shook his head once. "I issued a red alert. I warned her…"

"I find your assumption that we all obey every whim of your crazy little mind to be both presumptuous and based on faulty logic."

Sheldon crossed his arms and chose to ignore Leonard's barb. "They should be unloading the plane any minute now."

"Is your friend expecting you?" Leonard asked. "If they're FBI agents, won't they already have an escort?"

Sheldon looked unworried. "Someone from the local office will pick them up. I just… I have some information on Penny I think they should have."

"Sheldon… you don't even know if she's really missing. She could be halfway to Nebraska by now. That's what the local cops think happened anyway."

"He saw things my way eventually."

"You had to browbeat him into sub… oh… Hello." Leonard's face was slowly turning red, and his arms and gone to the middle of his chest, defensively… a sure sign an attractive potential mate was within a 100-yard radius. Sheldon looked up and tried to control his features so his relief wouldn't be obvious. He strode forward, hand extended.

Leonard couldn't exactly stop his jaw from dropping. Who _was_ this guy?

"Dr. Reid," Sheldon said evenly. Sheldon waited patiently while Reid retrieved a bottle of hand santizer from his pocket and used it efficiently before shaking Sheldon's hand.

"Dr. Cooper," he said, surprise evident in his tone. "I thought we'd see you later?'

"Is this your friend, Reid?" A beautiful black haired woman asked, her hand coming to rest gently on Reid's shoulder before it moved away. "I'm Agent Emily Prentiss. I work with Reid." She didn't offer her hand.

"It was our plan for you to… interview me later, yes," Sheldon said, ignoring both Prentiss and Leonard, and reached in his bag for a folder. "I just wanted to give you this."

"Ah, thank you," Reid said, not sparing the folder a look. "Sheldon, we're going to do our best to help your friend, but… you've got to let our process work."

"I wouldn't presume to operate on myself," Sheldon said. "I am trusting you, Reid."

And then he spun on his heel and started walking towards Leonard's car.

Leonard started after him, but turned apologetically. "I'm sorry. He's really not trying to be rude."

Spencer looked genuinely confused. "Yes… I know. Don't you?"

* * *

_Saturday, 1:30 p.m. EST_

_Somewhere in Pasadena, California_

The air was getting close – it smelled dirty, like sweat and fear and urine…. Not hers. Penny hadn't sunk that far, yet. But it was something to file away, something to think about.

_This is not the first time he's done this_.

Her hands clenched and then unclenched in the box. He hadn't tied her hands – he was far too confident in her inability to lift the top of it off and away from her. If one of the guys were here – hell, if Bernadette were here, she might be able to tell Penny a way – some minor miracle of physics, that she could push the absurdly heavy lid off.

But that wasn't her luck. No, she would get snatched by herself, and she was no genius. She hadn't spent hours laying awake at night figuring out what she would do if something horrible ever happened to her, the way the guys planned (half-in-jest, half-seriously) for all of the stereotypical apocalypses of science fiction. She'd laughed at them. She was wishing, now, that she'd thought to ask: Say, what happens if a lunatic puts me in a box? How do I get out of _that_ alive?

Through the box, she heard whistling. A jaunty type of tune… something a little old-fashioned, something she should know… it tickled the back of her mind, even as it sent chills down her spine. She thought about screaming, then thought enough to decide not to.

_Keep your head down and keep quiet, Penny-girl_, her father's voice whispered in her head, _those deer are more afraid of you than you are of them and we don't want even the scent of you on the wind… head down._

She took a deep breath, and held it.


End file.
